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Good books, old friends

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By Kara G. Kvasnicka

Tuesday, November 29, -0001

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These powerful, three-dimensional illustrations, created by Wisniewski and photographed by Lee Salsbery to accompany Wisniewski's text, alone tell an absorbing story with their bold colors and shapes.

Carefully conceived and original, these illustrations will no doubt inspire other illustrators to achieve the same high levels of artistry.

But it is also a striking retelling of an old Hebrew legend which gives a thought-provoking twist to the familiar theme of good triumphing over evil.

Set in Prague in 1580, "Golem" tells how the Prague Jews, "penned in their walled ghetto, forbidden the use of weapons or the protection of law," dealt with one instance of hatred and persecution of them by Prague Christians.

During that year Christians spread the "Blood Lie," that Jews were "mixing the blood of Christian children with the flour and water of matzo, the unleavened Passover Bread," to justify acts of violence and cruelty against the Jews.

Sensing he has received God's blessing to do so in a dream, Judah Loew ben Bezalel, chief rabbi of Prague, brings the clay giant Golem to life to protect the Jews from hate crimes engendered by the "Blood Lie."

As instructed by Rabbi Loew, Golem nonviolently guards the ghetto at night and delivers unharmed to the Prague authorities those who attempt to plant in the ghetto false evidence of the Blood Lie in the form of the blood or body of a missing Christian child.

Given the name Joseph by Rabbi Loew, Golem has a simple and endearing personality. His unquestioning allegiance to Rabbi Loew and the Jewish people make him seem harmless.

After the jail is full of Golem's arrests, the Prague Christians realize the Blood Lie is just that — a lie. Angry at being exposed, the Jews' fiercest enemies storm the gates of the ghetto hoping to start a riot.

Suddenly, with a mind and purpose of his own, Golem turns back the angry mob at the ghetto's gates as an angry giant rather than "a devoted servant of Israel." He gives a hint of the destruction of which he is capable by sweeping the first wave of attackers aside with his hand and snapping their battering ram in two. Survivors flee in panic.

Rabbi Loew is frightened and saddened by the giant's uncontrollable rage. The next day he assures the emperor of Prague that Golem will be destroyed when "the Jews are no longer in danger."

The emperor guarantees the Jews' safety, and the Golem is destroyed, the clay of which he was made carried into the attic of the synagogue and locked away forever.

"Since then," the story ends, "Golem has slept the dreamless sleep of clay. But many say he could awaken. Perhaps, when the desperate need for justice is united with holy purpose, Golem will come to life once more."

Hmmm . . . What is the last children's folktale or legend you have read in which the vanquishing hero has to be vanquished in turn? When has a simple character become a complex enigma?

In addition to familiarizing us with an important Jewish legend and reminding us of the long history of persecution against the Jews, Wisniewski challenges our perceptions of good and evil, blurring their boundaries instead of making them separate and easy to discern as they are in most children's picture books.

As Wisniewski explains in a note following the story, "Golem serves as a cautionary tale about the limits of human power. It has inspired the work of composers and authors; there is evidence of its influence in Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. The tale may even prove prophetic — as the fields of computer science, robotics, and gene manipulation advance, technological Golems may arise in our culture."

(Wisniewski's note also provides the origins and background for the Golem legend, helping the reader separate fact from fiction.)

Whereas last year's Caldecott Medalist Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathman (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1995, $15.95) could be read to toddlers, Golem, with its persecution theme and multilayered meanings, is better suited to an audience of older children and young adults who are, as Wisniewski said in an interview after he won the award, "willing to meet a good story more than half way."

Golem seems a somber and serious choice for the Caldecott Medal one year after it was awarded to the light-hearted, funny Officer Buckle. But with its daring and dramatic treatment of a familiar theme in children's literature, it is equally if not more deserving of any honor bestowed on it.

No matter what their ethnic or religious origin, legends and folktales such as Golem are relevant to all our lives. Go to the folklore section of your local library and read for yourself.

Kvasnicka, a former East Village Magazine news editor, has been the magazine's contributing editor and research consultant since 1989. She has a master's degree in information and library studies from the University of Michigan and works for the Genesee District Library.

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